


Let Me Bid You Farewell

by satb31



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Era, M/M, Medical School, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-23
Updated: 2014-06-23
Packaged: 2018-02-05 18:51:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1828519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/satb31/pseuds/satb31
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the night before the barricades fall, Combeferre reminisces about his past relationship with Joly during medical school.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let Me Bid You Farewell

**Author's Note:**

> My source of information about the lives of medical students in 19th century France was Florent Palluault’s dissertation Medical Students in England and France, 1815-1858: A Comparative Study (University of Oxford, 2003). It was an absolutely invaluable resource to me as I developed my vision for Combeferre and Joly’s lives as medical students in Paris in the late 1820s and early 1830s.
> 
> I must express my deepest thanks to tumblr users maraschinocheri, crazyinjune, and clenster for serving as betas.
> 
> The title comes from the Dire Straits classic Brothers in Arms.

The men are gathered in a corner of the bistro, their carbines resting on the backs of their chairs, listening to Prouvaire recite a poem. As the young man speaks of innocence and love, Combeferre stands apart from the group, watching them soberly and silently.

Combeferre knows that every man in that room will soon see death.

And Combeferre steps outside, unable to watch any longer.

Once on the street Combeferre reaches into his pocket, where he has a packet of tobacco and some rolling papers. His fingers are swollen and trembling as he rolls himself a cigarette and lights it, waiting for the head rush to kick in and help him push aside all of his concerns about the gunpowder, about the National Guard, about Enjolras’s fierce and unpredictable temper.

“Combeferre?” comes a familiar voice.

Combeferre turns toward Joly, noticing even in the darkness how pale he is — and how extraordinarily calm he is.

“May I?” he asks, gesturing toward Combeferre’s cigarette, his voice barely above a whisper.

Wordlessly Combeferre passes it to him, his fingers brushing up against Joly’s as he does. Joly inhales, gazing off into the distance, watching the sentries at the top of the barricade.

Why is Joly here? Combeferre cannot help but wonder. He should be in his rooms right now, tucked into his perfectly aligned bed, worrying about the color of his tongue, not sharing Combeferre’s lingering concern about the status of their gunpowder supply.

Combeferre does not fear his own death.

But he is already mourning his beloved Joly’s.

**

They met as first-year students at medical school; two men newly arrived from the south in a quest to adopt medicine as a profession. They initially bonded over their common origins, but they were complete opposites — Combeferre, haughty and austere, a man who loved learning and philosophy and books, and the garrulous Joly, his good humor tempered by a brow permanently crinkled with worry about the state of his own health.

Many times they ended up sitting next to each other at lectures, exchanging vague pleasantries while waiting for the speaker to arrive. But despite the warm autumn weather, Combeferre noticed that Joly’s nose seemed to be perpetually runny — he was constantly sniffling into his handkerchief. Most days Combeferre shook his head as he walked out of the lectures and headed toward the hospital, wondering how Joly even managed to get himself out of bed and to lectures each day. He was convinced that there was absolutely no way Joly would survive until winter.

But then winter came — and they were paired together for dissections.

In the abstract, Combeferre was aware that medical school would require him to work with corpses. But from the first moment he walked into the room where the dissections took place, the stench of death overwhelmed him so much he had to pull his cravat up over his nose and mouth. And when he was faced with his first cadaver — a man, and a young one at that — he found himself sweating profusely despite the chill of the room itself. Feeling light-headed, he had to beat a quick retreat to the corridor, where he collapsed on the floor, leaning up against the wall. He drew his knees up to his chest and buried his face in his arms, willing the nausea to pass.

“Are you all right?” came a congested voice he instantly recognized as Joly’s.

Combeferre jerked his head up and tried to compose himself in front of his colleague. “I will be fine in a moment — no need to worry about me,” he said, hoping he did not look as weak as he felt.

Joly took a seat next to him, sitting as closely as he could to Combeferre without actually touching him. “You should probably know I specialize in worry,” he said, the corners of his mouth turning up in a reassuring grin.

“I must get used to it, is it not so?” Combeferre asked, realizing what the answer would be even as the words left his mouth. “If this is to be my life’s calling, certainly.”

“Indeed,” Joly nodded. “I am very fortunate in that the sight of the dead does not bother me in the slightest. But I cannot seem to master the material in the lectures as you do. Perhaps we can study together, you and me.”

Combeferre managed a wan smile, despite the bile that still churned in his stomach. He hesitated only briefly before he pronounced, “I believe that is a brilliant idea.”

Joly reached over and tentatively patted him on the knee.

And a friendship began.

**

After that day they started to spend more and more time together — traveling from the hospital to the school together each morning, and dining together every evening. Combeferre tutored Joly in the academic subjects as they huddled together in Combeferre’s cramped rooms going over their notes and reviewing the textbooks, while trying to calm Joly’s nerves every time he insisted that he suffered from whatever ailment they were learning about.

For his part, Joly helped Combeferre overcome his squeamishness as they worked together on their dissections, distracting him with humor and freshly laundered handkerchiefs throughout each lesson.

In their free time they explored the city together. On Sundays they would take excursions around the city, observing the flora and fauna on lengthy walks that lasted for hours — inevitably they would be so engrossed in conversation that they would wander very far from their section of the city, and would have to find creative ways to get themselves back home. Once or twice they ventured to the Louvre, where they would talk excitedly about the works on exhibition, or they would partake in the theatre that Combeferre was falling in love with. They frequently spoke in agitated tones about the political situation in France, and of their common commitment to the ideals of the Revolution – ideals that had played a part in both of their decisions to pursue medicine as a career.

Neither man engaged in the love affairs that were so common among their fellow students — Combeferre demonstrated no interest in such matters, while Joly’s attempts to meet a young grisette were half-hearted at best. Their fellow students sometimes teased them that they were like a married couple themselves, teasing that irked Combeferre and amused Joly.

“I do not know why they insist on saying those things,” Combeferre huffed one evening, as they were finishing their meal.

Joly shrugged. “Let them have their fun. We both know it is far from the truth,” he said as he signaled for more wine. “We enjoy each other’s company. What is wrong with that?”

Combeferre busied himself with adjusting his napkin. “Nothing at all,” he mumbled.

But in the far recesses of his mind, he worried that perhaps their colleagues realized something he and Joly did not.

**

On a sultry early summer evening in their second year, Combeferre was sitting at his desk, carefully transcribing his notes while he waited for Joly to return from his rounds at the hospital. Twilight was approaching, as was a thunderstorm — and the arrival of both without Joly’s return concerned Combeferre, who knew his friend would have been eager to complete his work and meet for dinner before the cloudburst.

The rain had just begun in earnest when Joly appeared, entering Combeferre’s rooms without knocking, as was his custom. His hair was plastered to his forehead and his clothes were soaked through.

And his eyes were full of tears.

“Joly?” Combeferre leaped out of his chair at the sight of his friend’s distress.

“I lost her,” Joly whispered.

Combeferre felt certain he knew exactly who Joly was referring to — it was a young woman, although he was not familiar with all of the details of her case. But this was the first time Joly had lost a patient he had worked with so closely, despite all of his efforts on her behalf.

Their conversations about death had been frequent and clinical — after all, they spent so much time among the deceased and the dying, it was something from which they had detached themselves, something they joked about in the full knowledge that it was something they would witness every day in their chosen line of work. Joly always boasted that he was acclimated to it.

It was clear that Joly was wrong.

Impulsively and awkwardly Combeferre embraced him, holding his shaking body as Joly began to weep into Combeferre’s shoulder. Combeferre was helpless to do anything more than stroke his back gently, and listen to his cries.

Combeferre was not a man who demonstrated emotion — but the sight of this good man, his friend and companion, destroyed by the death of a complete stranger, made him forget himself.

And he kissed Joly softly on the top of his head.

Joly pulled back at the touch of Combeferre’s lips, searching his face with red-rimmed eyes. Combeferre had never thought of Joly as anything more than his closest friend and study partner — but now he was wondering if they could be something more.

And from the look in Joly’s eyes, Combeferre felt sure he was wondering the exact same thing.

In retrospect Combeferre could never remember who kissed whom first, or how they wound up on his tiny bed, tugging at each other’s clothing with a need neither of them knew they had bottled up inside them.

But he remembered the sight of Joly’s face, completely at peace as they came together as one — for once not worried about examinations or the cholera.

He remembered how good and safe and warm it felt to lie there afterwards, his head on Joly’s bare chest as the thunder and lightning raged and the rain beat down on the roof above them.

“Check my pulse,” Joly whispered as he stroked Combeferre’s hair.

Combeferre wrapped his fingers around Joly’s slender wrist, touching his index finger to Joly’s artery. “I think you will live,” he murmured, just before he drifted off to sleep.

When he awakened the next morning, his body still entangled with Joly’s, he felt sure he could do this every night.

And every night for the next year, they did.

Until the revolution eventually beckoned.

**

The next spring, on a cool evening toward the end of the academic year, Combeferre was dining with Joly at a favorite restaurant when they happened to encounter an old and beloved friend of Combeferre’s — a man by the name of Enjolras. They invited Enjolras and the friend he was with, who introduced himself as Courfeyrac — to join them for dinner. The four men spent the evening in debate at an ever-increasing volume about the political situation in France.

And Les Amis de l’ABC was born.

The early days of their group were heady ones, as others joined them in their cause and their collective excitement and agitation took root. Combeferre found himself an accidental leader of the group, his intellect and reason serving as a model for the other students. Enjolras saw him as his right hand man, while his debates with Courfeyrac helped each man hone his arguments. He also found himself spending more and more time with Prouvaire, the young poet, who would banish his initial shyness and reticence at Combeferre’s encouragement, speaking of love and death and beauty with an unparalleled eloquence.

For his part, Joly was an enthusiastic member of Les Amis, but he was also occupied with other things — theoretically, he and Combeferre were both supposed to be preparing for exams, but instead Joly spent far too many evenings drinking with Bossuet, a perpetually unlucky law student who often found himself homeless. Joly frequently took Bossuet in, sharing his rooms whenever his friend was down on his luck. He thrived on Bossuet’s company; his good nature and infectious optimism was a balm to Joly’s nerves.

Combeferre and Joly continued to see each other at school — they still studied together, still dissected together, still dined together.

But after dinner they would go to the Musain, and retreat to their separate corners; Combeferre would join Prouvaire and Courfeyrac by the fire, where they would spend the evening huddled close together, discussing obscure philosophers, while Joly would seek out Bossuet and Grantaire’s table, where they would drink copious amounts of wine and pepper their political conversations with talk about their various exploits around Paris. Grantaire and Bossuet had each had numerous lovers since their arrival in the city, and Joly was intrigued by their experiences.

At the end of the night, Combeferre and Joly would reunite, and sometimes they would return to Combeferre’s rooms.

But more and more frequently, Combeferre would go to his writing desk, giving the excuse that he had books to read or treatises to write, and Joly would nod agreeably and return to his rooms, sometimes with an inebriated Grantaire — or more and more frequently, the luckless Bossuet — in tow.

Even as they were coming together in a common cause, they were coming apart as a couple.

Joly himself did not seem unhappy with the situation; in fact, more often than not, Combeferre noticed Joly displaying an intimacy with Bossuet that he had previously demonstrated with Combeferre. For his part, Combeferre told himself it was natural — after all, relationships just ran their course, he assured himself. He had a higher calling, he believed — the future of the revolution depended on him, after all, and he could not let his relationship with Joly distract him. Deep down, though, there was another reason he started pushing Joly away.

Combeferre knew that if things went as planned, he was going to die.

And he wanted nothing more than for Joly to live.

**

For a long while after their relationship withered, Combeferre always thought that when the barricades eventually rose, Joly would allow his anxiety to get the best of him. He envisioned a scenario in which Bossuet would convince Joly to stay away, or that Joly would choose of his own volition to wait out the violence with the grisette he was rumored to be courting.

But Joly was a man of his convictions, and when this fight began, he stepped up right beside the rest of the group — and now, Combeferre cannot understand why he ever doubted him. He knew better than anyone that Joly’s desire to heal the sick was borne of the revolutionary belief in liberty and equality — and that it was a belief he would fight for.

And now here they are, behind a barricade — awaiting the inevitable.

As they stand in the darkness, passing the cigarette back and forth in silence, thunder rumbles in the distance.

And as a light rain begins to mist around them, Joly smiles slightly at Combeferre, the cigarette dangling from his lips as he extends his arm toward his friend and former lover. 

“Feel my pulse, Combeferre,” he says, the voice as familiar to Combeferre as the back of his own hand.

Combeferre wraps his long fingers around Joly’s slender wrist, feeling his heart beating. To Combeferre’s surprise, Joly’s pulse is completely normal.

“I think you will live,” Combeferre says quietly, aware that they both know he is lying.

And without thinking, he pulls Joly into a long and hard embrace. Combeferre strokes Joly’s back, feeling each muscle and bone that is as familiar to him as his own, trying to convey with touch what he cannot convey with words.

And as the rain begins to fall harder, they come together as they once did in Combeferre’s rooms.

Coming together in a final farewell.


End file.
